We’ve all become happily familiar with the tall, welcoming figure of Deacon Intern Jayne Osgood at the altar Sunday mornings and around the parish. Many of us have witnessed her tireless work with refugee families and other social justice and community engagement ministries. And Deacon Anne Derse is an active and joyful presence in our lives.
But what exactly IS a deacon? And a deacon intern?
More on the “intern” below, but first some practical things. Like priests, deacons go through an extensive process of discernment and formal education, including seminary study, the Deacon School at the Diocese of Washington and parochial and social service internships. Deacons are ordained by a bishop and work for a bishop, who assigns them to work within a parish or even with a secular service organization. A deacon wears a clerical collar and holds the title The Reverend, and within a parish performs such important liturgical functions as announcing the call to worship, inviting confession, proclaiming the Gospel reading, and overseeing practical details of Communion. Deacons announce the dismissal after services with an exuberant call to serve the Lord.
A deacon is an ancient position within the Church dating back to the first century. The title comes from the Greek diakonos, meaning servant. And that’s a clue to the modern role of deacon: primarily to lead in community engagement, advocating for justice and service. It’s a two-way job, organizing and leading our service to the outside world, and representing the needs of the outside world to the Church. In that role deacons may assist in composing and leading prayers of intercession.
One description in a book Deacon Anne Derse lent me is that deacons “tend to be plain, vigorous and practical” (Many Servants, by Ormande Plater), their days to be “active and dusty.” Not sure about “plain,” but “vigorous and practical” and “dusty” seem to fit the hard-working deacons I know. Deacons lead by example. Plater describes the roles of deacons as “angels and waiters,” ancient concepts that describe the two functions that deacons serve:
- Carrying the good news of God in Christ to those Jesus sought to serve, loving and supporting the poor, the sick, the suffering, the marginalized, the incarcerated, the victims of injustice, the helpless. Getting dusty.
- Bringing their needs to the attention of the Church, and through worship, encouraging, enlisting and enabling others to join in that service.
All of us, of course, are mindful of our responsibility to the disadvantaged and oppressed. Having a deacon in our midst is to help ensure that our own service is not random and sporadic.
To that precise end, our own Bishop, Mariann Budde, has been instrumental in turbocharging the presence of deacons in the Diocese. In 2012 she ordained the first deacons for the diocese and established a task force to develop a formal mechanism to guide the discernment, formation and deployment of deacons throughout the diocese. Importantly, that led to the establishment of a Deacon School. The goal, as one of its first graduates, Deacon Anne Derse, put it, was “to build the capacity of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington to lead God’s work of compassion and justice in the world.”
Deacon interns spend 18 months in the Deacon School, part of their four years of work and study before ordination. Students also take at least a year of specified on-line or in-person courses at seminary and must complete two internships of nine to twelve months, one at a social service agency and one at a parish within the diocese. Candidates for the priesthood are ordained and serve for six months as deacons before continuing toward priesthood; they are known as “transitional deacons.” They are not to be confused with those like Deacon Derse and Deacon Intern Osgood, who are known as “vocational deacons” and commit their entire ministry to the work of social justice. In the Episcopal Church, the diaconate is a full and equal order.
Under the leadership of the Rev. Dr. Sari Ateek and Deacon Derse, St. John’s has been a leader in developing a strong diaconate within the diocese, having mentored three deacon interns before our current Deacon Intern Osgood. She will be ordained in September.
Godspeed deacons!
- Parishioner David Wood